mlshum

Thanks so much for taking the time to read along again! I really appreciate it! I would have been absolutely terrified!! It's a wonder you ever went back into the water! I've seen a couple of barracudas, not as big as the one Ron saw, but I've never seen a shark. I both want to and don't want to see one. I'm pretty sure I would need to get out of the water ASAP, but it would certainly be an experience. Liz insists that she'll never swim with sharks for an excursion. I keep telling her that we probably already have and just didn't realize it. LOL I am going to try the fins in Sept. I have tried them before but I they just feel clunky to me. I think I may be bending my foot or something in a weird way. I am going to watch some videos on YouTube before then and see if I can figure it out any better. It's strange, when I went scuba diving, I wore them with no problem but somehow, I haven't liked them when snorkeling.

Thank you so much! We're really looking forward to it. We've had an idyllic marriage for the past almost 40 years. I am so blessed. We started so young....we didn't know how young we were! I was only 18 when we got married. Ron was 21. I turned 18, graduated high school and got married in three consecutive weekends. My dad was a basket case. LOL I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but it has worked for us!

What fantastic pictures! Thanks so much for sharing them! I remember of couple of those, especially the Rolls, from my times on some those ships. I saw the Rolls again this past Thanksgiving on Celebration. We were scheduled for the third sailing of the Jubilee but when it was delayed, we had to switch to Celebration. I still hope to get to Galveston at some point. You've had such an amazing run and I appreciate your telling us about it! Also, thanks so much for reading along and for your kind words.

We walked up to the buffet area. There were four buffet lines. Like I said earlier, I’ve never been to Princess Cay before. I assumed that all the buffet lines would be the same. We joined the shortest line, which was Line 4. This is the buffet area. A great view from the picnic area Here's the menu When we reached the serving area, we realized that this line was only for sides and desserts. What?? You had to go to one of the middle lines to get a hamburger or hot dog. That’s kind of weird but whatever, I guess. We got our sides, and I sat down at to keep our seats at a picnic table since there wasn’t much available seating at the time. Ron went back to one of the middle lines to get our burgers. That was when the war began. As you can see, the lines were numbered but no explanation given. Grrr...... There were flies. Lots and lots of flies. I was trying to keep them off our food. Waving them away wasn’t enough because there were too many. I finally covered our food with napkins AND continued to wave them away as much as possible. It was so frustrating! I hate flies, especially when they’re trying to land on what I’m trying to eat. Ron finally made it back with our burgers. He had accomplished it surprisingly fast, but our sides had unfortunately pretty much reached room temperature by then. We tried to eat as quickly as possible because of the flies. I usually enjoy a picnic lunch but not this time. I don’t know if it’s always like this but if I’m at this port again I intend to move further away from the picnic area to try to find a place with fewer flies. No matter, we were fed and that is what mattered. As you can see, we survived the invasion of flies. We went back to our loungers, and I decided that we needed a Diet Pepsi. I remembered that on Half Moon Cay the Sign and Sail cards could not be used at the island bars. I would need cash. I got some cash and headed to the bar. When I got there, I was told that they don’t accept cash, only Sign and Sail cards. You’re kidding, right?!? I walked back to our loungers, got our cards, walked back to the bar and FINALLY managed to get a Diet Pepsi. Seems like a lot of work for that, doesn’t it? On the way back, I noticed this... Oops! I kind of missed that little detail. The day was beautiful, and the temperature was perfect. We stayed on the beach reading and just enjoying the beautiful day for another hour or so. I had thought I might get back in the water but the mood sort of left me and we decided to head back to the ship. It was about 2pm by that point. The last tender would depart the island at 3:15. On our way to the tender we stopped in a gift shop and bought a Princess Cay magnet. The tender was full but not crowded and both the boarding, trip and unloading happened quickly. We were back in our cabin in no time. This is where you go to board the tender. No lines! Boarding the tender There was an elephant waiting for us We spend some time on deck reading before getting changed for dinner I put my "duck of the day" in a corner to watch to see if anyone would get it. This one had to be in a Ziplock bag because the band holding its little card had broken. As lady came by and picked it up. She grinned and seemed happy. She took it with her. That, in turn, made ME smile! Since it was well into the afternoon, we decided to go ahead and get ready for dinner. We did this at a pretty relaxed pace as there was no reason to hurry. When we were ready, we wandered around listening to music for a while before dinner. Lunch is over but I'll try to get back later to put up the rest of that day.

I would do that one again in a heartbeat! It makes me sad that Carnival doesn’t sail from Puerto Rico any longer. I will probably do that one again on another line at some point. I’d also love to do the ABC islands at some point. I’ve been reading @Saint Greg’s recent review of that. i’m one of those weird people who will get off the ship regardless. If we’re in port, I’m getting off. Even on Celebration last Thanksgiving when I got so sick, I managed to walk into the port area very briefly. It was made slightly better by the fact we were doing that same itinerary in Sept. Next year we are doing our bucket list cruise to Alaska. It reminds me a little of the southern Caribbean itinerary in that there are 5 ports in 7 days. That will be awesome!

Thanks so much! I'm easily amused, I guess. LOL I wish I were a better photographer but occasionally I get one that I really like!

Yes, exactly! I've been on Sunshine and Sunrise but not Radiance yet.....or I guess I WAS on it when it was still Victory. I think that whole episode of "sunshining ships" was very confusing!

Princess Cay – May 2nd My faithful anchor/rope/thruster alarm again woke me up bright and early whether I wanted to be up or not. This was our first trip to Princess Cay. I don’t know how we’ve missed it so many times, but I was looking forward to trying it out. Some of our friends had been there the previous fall and had talked about how good the snorkeling was. We brought our own snorkel gear and were ready to see what we could see. I had read that Princess Cay was one of the most missed ports in the Bahamas, but it appeared our weather was beautiful, the sea was glassy and visiting the island wouldn’t be a problem. We got dressed for the beach and went up to Lido. I realized at that point that the name of the Lido restaurant was Tiffanys. How cool is that?!? We’d been having Breakfast at Tiffany’s the last couple of mornings and didn’t even realize it! (In case you haven't noticed, I'm easily amused by small things. LOL) We had used the blue towels in our room the previous day so after we finished breakfast, we stopped by the towel hut and got a couple more towels for the day. We stopped at the room to collect our snorkel gear and headed out to board the tender. This day the gangway was on Deck 4. Again, we walked straight down the stairs and onto the tender. We really didn’t have to do much waiting in line at all during this cruise. I guess that is one of the perks to a smaller ship with fewer people. On the tender Pulling away from the ship Princess Cay is a private “island” on the tip of Eleuthera. Unlike Half Moon Cay, it is very rocky, and the water tends to be pretty shallow in a lot of places. We had rented an umbrella and two chairs before the cruise, so we stopped by the “Float Station” to claim our chairs. This was also the place where you could rent snorkel gear and other things. There were lots of water items that were available for rent including a Hobie Wave sailboat. That looked like so much fun, but prior sailing experience was required and unfortunately, we didn’t have that. Welcome to Princess Cay! Why, thank you! Happy to be here! I always love the pictures of the ship anchored out in the water. This is where you went to claim chair/umbrellas, clam shells or water related items. I wish we had a choice of where our loungers were located but basically, we checked in and were shown to two loungers with an umbrella. I would have liked to have been a little closer to the snorkel area but no matter. I need to get those extra steps anyway. We settled our belongings on our loungers, got out our gear and set off to explore the island. We first walked down to the right of the area where the tender docks. There was a rocky point that projected into the water, and we thought it might be a good place to snorkel, but the water was really too shallow. We saw Lucia and Hannah at that end and stopped to tell them “Hi”. I didn't get any pictures to the right of the tender dock point. It was only about ankle deep. Lots of loungers The view from the observation tower Our spot for the day We then walked in the other direction. There was a playground, some shops, photo opportunities, swimming areas, a picnic area, a lookout tower and a snorkel area. According to the posted directions, you were to enter to the left of the snorkel pavilion where people were swimming and swim around to the right to the reef. Playground Snorkel pavilion Again, the water was slightly cold and again, we adapted pretty quickly. We set off to explore the area. There were lots of rocks near the shore and in the distance was a grassy area. I was pretty sure I saw a turtle moving out in the grassy area but as I tried to go that direction a lifeguard stopped me and pointed the other direction. Phooey! There were fish and it was fun, but I would have appreciated a little more freedom to explore a little further afield. Ron snorkeled and filmed for about 30 minutes and decided to head back to our loungers. I stayed out for another 20 – 30 minutes enjoying the fish and swimming. It was truly a beautiful day, and I was having a great time. I wanted the Go Pro He just kept filming! Finally, I got it and took his picture Lots of the typical Caribbean fish. I know the Seargent Major. What are the others called? This was one of the biggest of this variety I had ever seen. I tried looking it up online. It looks like a picture of a Bermuda Chub. Is that right? Does anyone know? Off in the distance was the beginning of a grassy area where I thought I saw a turtle but, alas, I was turned back by a lifeguard. Boo!!! I finally got out of the water and went back to our chair to dry off a little. I was tired and hungry. You know how swimming will do that! After we rested for a little while it seemed like lunch was a good idea. He seems pretty chill.

I'm glad you had a great cruise. I agree completely, attitude is everything. It always mystifies me that some people can work so hard to be so miserable when, if you'd just let it go and roll along with the punches, you can still have a good time.

Please feel free to hijack anytime! I enjoy learning about others experiences. We’ve been on 4 of the ships that have been retired…Sensation, Ecstasy, Victory and Fascination. I, too, like the newer ships better but, I’ll be honest, I like all of them and typically the embarkation port or itinerary is usually more important to me than the ship. I think Horizon might have been my favorite but it’s hard to say. lol. My favorite itinerary was on Fascination when they sailed from Puerto Rico. I loved the southern Caribbean route. Next year we’re celebrating our 40th anniversary with a trip to Alaska on Spirit.

That’s awesome! You were, and have remained, an expert. My first cruise was on Sensation, then Ecstasy. I have yet to repeat a ship but it will happen for the first time in September on the Mardi Gras. Have you sailed every ship in the fleet? Your website is fantastic, by the way. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve used it.

It was a fantastic snorkeling excursion. If only I’d seen the turtle, too…. Still, this was the next best thing. There is absolutely nothing like the Caribbean for beautiful water. I wish I could claim that comeback as an original thought but like I said, it was from an older lady on my first cruise. It has stuck with me for 14 years and I finally got to use it. lol

Yes! Yes! It went on forever! In subsequent days for this story that is exactly what I had called it, an “anchor/rope/thruster” alarm clock! I didn’t realize that Elation was your first cruise. May I ask the year?

One of the things I quickly remembered about some of the ships is the fact that the hairdryer is tethered in a drawer. You must alternate between standing, sitting, hunching…whatever position is necessary to get the hair dry. This is not a huge problem for Ron. His hair is very short. It IS a problem for me! It’s very awkward and I much prefer a "free range" hair dryer. Nassau falls away in the distance behind us All fresh and clean, we still had about 45 minutes before it would be time for dinner. We went to the Atrium on deck seven and listed to a couple of guys play music. They called themselves the Duo Bros. (I posted a picture of them earlier.) One of them looked like my friend Chris who plays music with us at church. The other guy looked like the actor Kevin Klein. I would think of them like that for the rest of the cruise. Once I’ve seen it or thought of it I can’t UNSEE it! We found one of the padded window seats to be empty and snagged it. I happened to notice something behind me and, lo and behold, a little pink duck was hiding on the window frame. Score! I dropped a duck in a stairwell on the way to dinner. I found a duck! I dropped off my "duck of the day". This night is my other favorite meal. I had spaghetti carbona for a starter and southern fried chicken from the entrée. Ron had a spring roll for a starter and the carbona for his entrée. I opted for a brownie for dessert and he had the banana cream pie. Gusti and Sadia were again super-fast, the food was really good, and we were again out of the dining room before showtime. We went straight to the theatre after dinner because it was time for Deal or No Deal. I picked up two cards and we settled in for a fun game. I made precisely one match on each of the two games. Ron won a Bingo package. Both of the contestants walked away with around $120 dollars. The big winner was a lady in the audience named Carmen. She won a 5-day cruise! I’ve never seen that happen before! Ready to play The game is starting Fingers crossed for this lady! Unfortunately, she only won $120. The big winner was... ...Carmen! She won a 5-day cruise! How awesome is that?!? After Deal or No Deal, they did a quick trivia game on classic TV. Ron only missed one, but it wasn’t enough. Someone had a perfect score. We decided to go back to the room for a minute. On the way down the stairs, we walked through a group of about 8 teenagers who were just sitting and chatting. As we walked by one of the boys said, “Well don’t you look snazzy tonight?” I immediately replied, “Every night is elegant night.” We all cracked up and I got a fist bump in return. I heard an older lady say that on my very first cruise fourteen years ago and I’ve been waiting all this time for the right setting to use that line. It may be one of those "you had to be there" moments because it doesn't seem nearly as funny as I type it out. LOL I usually never know what to say and always come up with what I SHOULD have said an hour later. I was glad I finally nailed it. We decided to go up on deck for a little while. I love the deck at night. The stars are beautiful, and everything is lit up like a Christmas tree. It’s so pretty! They still had cookies out from dinner, so I grabbed a few to take back to our cabin. We would snack on them occasionally for the rest of the week. We also got a Diet Pepsi. It had been a good day, but we were tired and ready for bed. Chugging along at 12.7 knots

I remember when it was called "The Morning Show" and I figured it was the same but since I'd never been to either I wasn't positive. Thanks for the info!

We gathered up our snorkel gear and headed back out to meet our excursion. We were meeting at the shelters right outside the ship. They were clearly marked with numbers. Everything was well organized. Today we were snorkeling with Stuart Cove’s Dive Bahamas company. We were planning a two-reef snorkel. This was the meeting point for our excursion. Waiting to get started I know a lot of people don’t like ship excursions and we have done both ship excursions and private excursions but if an interesting ship excursion is available, I will often choose that simply because there is a guarantee that we won’t be left should we be late. More than once our tours were late getting back and had we not been on a ship tour during those times it would have been too late. I like that guarantee. It’s worth the peace of mind for me. While I may WATCH pier runners, I don’t want to BE a pier runner. We were checked in by Kenja. She was very well organized and so friendly! She gave us some paperwork to fill out. We did our paperwork and sat down to wait. We only waited about five minutes before we were ready to board our boat and be on our way. Kenja led the way, and we started the short walk to our boat. There were about 15 people in our group. As we were walking along, Ron noticed a pair of sunglasses that had been left behind by a couple of ladies on our tour. He immediately stopped them and gave them the glasses. Their names were Hannah and Lucia from St. Louis, and they were on their second cruise. They were very nice, and we really enjoyed talking with them during our entire excursion. We would later see them around the ship and even in the water at Princess Cay. It’s always nice to make friends on a cruise. Hey, Lucia! As we headed out to our snorkel site Kenja narrated and introduced us to the crew. The captain was Captain Wendell and the other instructor was Shauno. They were all so nice. I can’t say enough good things about this experience. After Kenja gave a safety briefing, she handed out gear. We had brought our own snorkels and masks. Ron elected to use flippers and I decided not to. He loves flippers but I’ve never quite gotten the hang of it yet. I do plan to try to learn to use them a little better at the next opportunity because I think it makes a person faster in the water. Kenja gives us instructions Shauno was just singing along and living his best life The colors of the Caribbean are so beautiful! We're on our way! While Kenja was passing out gear Captain Wendell was playing music and Shauno was singing along. That boy can sing! Ron mentioned something about his great singing voice and that seemed to please him. They were just a happy bunch. I was sitting beside Captain Wendell, and we chatted during our trip to the first reef. He asked what we did professionally and when I told him we were appraisers he started telling me prices of things that were for sale or had sold recently. It is obvious I cannot afford a beachfront property! We were first taken to the Thunderball Reef. We were the only boat there. Captain Wendell said not only was it a good snorkel site but was somewhat protected by Rose Island, so the water wasn’t quite as choppy. At that point Kenja gave us a snorkel lesson. I’ve been on multiple snorkel excursions. It’s one of my favorite things to do in the Bahamas, but I think this is the first time I remember having actual instruction. I appreciated that! After instructions we all went down the ladder at the back of the boat. The water was a little cold, but we got used to it quickly. You sort of HAVE to get used to it quickly when you’ve jumped in and there’s no quick way to get back out! I tried to stay near Ron but, as usual, I quickly lost him. I always have trouble seeing him when we’re all in the water, but it was fine. I knew I’d catch up with him eventually. He’s much faster than me with his fins. (This is why I need to conquer using the fins!) I have a pair of strap on Croc sandals that are my “water shoes”. They dry really quickly, and I can wear them to the activity, during the activity and after the activity without changing shoes. Shauno thought that was the funniest thing that I was swimming in sandals and mentioned it to me several times. He’s such a sunny personality! Pictures can't do it justice Lots of the regular Caribbean fish The reef was gorgeous and colorful. There were so many fish, and some were really large. Sergeant majors are always the most dependable fish in the Caribbean, and I was caught for a minute in a whole school of them. They were everywhere! There were also other fish I’d seen many times before but didn’t know their names. Maybe you guys can help me out! What are the names of these fish shown above? I was hoping to see a turtle but, alas, not today. I was having a little difficulty with my mask fogging. When we started to the next site, I used some anti-fog spray and that seemed to help a little. Ron had the Go Pro with him. It was a Christmas present a few years ago and he has enjoyed it immensely. When we got back on the boat, he showed me a video that he’d shot of a large turtle!! What?!?! I didn’t see a turtle but apparently they were there! It was so exciting. He was able to snip some pictures for me to include here. Ron said he was just swimming along when he noticed movement. It was a turtle! It swam up and over the reef. Ron surfaced at one point and tried to find me but couldn't locate me. Just like that, the turtle was gone. I'm so sad I missed it! Everyone was back on the boat, and we headed to our second reef; the Three Sisters Reef. There was a beach with a large sandy area. I didn’t go on the beach but some of our group did. The waves were crashing against the rocks beside the beach. It was a little choppier than the last site, but really beautiful. The water clarity was better at the first reef but there were still a lot of fish to see on this reef as well. Ron continued to be lucky and saw a huge barracuda! He couldn’t get a good picture of it once he realized it was there. It was gone almost as quickly as he saw it. He said this was the best snorkeling excursion he’d taken, and I have to agree. It was well worth the $89.99 per person. I would do this one over and over again. Ron didn't get a good picture of the barracuda, but you can kind of make it out here. After about 30 minutes at our second reef it was time to get back on the boat and head back to the ship. It was about a 20-minute ride back to the ship and during the trip Kenja pointed out homes owned by various celebrities. She also told us about some of the filming that had been done in Nassau, particularly for the James Bond movies. Apparently, the owner of the dive company, Stuart Cove, was involved in the diving/filming for some of those movies. Heading back to our ship Back in the port area we were dropped off and we headed back to the ship. We were some of the last passengers back on board. I was tired and I was famished but it had been such a good day! We went to our room to shower and clean up for dinner. A dog was waiting for us As we started moving, I happened to glance out our porthole and saw the lighthouse perfectly framed. I grabbed my phone to take a quick picture. I love it! It was happy accident, and I may have it printed! I guess there are advantages to the porthole in spite of the noise. Here was the first attempt Then I got a little closer to get the framing right. I like this one! I'm going to stop here but will hopefully get back later to finish posting the Nassau day.

That's awesome! We barely missed each other! I honestly don't remember it? The FunTimes mentions "The Wave" morning show so I'm guess that might be it? To be honest, I've never gone to "The Wave" before. I think I watched it on the big screen once a long time ago. Hope you had as good a sailing as we did. Was your cruise the one that missed Freeport due to the propulsion issues?

I bet that scared you to death! The next port we visited after Nassau was Princess Cay so the anchor had to have been involved on that one. It was an interesting experience for sure!

I would love to hear that story! Which ship?

That makes sense! I never really thought about that before. It was definitely a noisy beast. Lol

Nassau – May 1st I was abruptly awakened about 6am with a terrible clanging/banging noise. What is that???? Are we under attack? Are we being boarded by pirates? Do I need to evacuate? Suddenly it dawned on me. In our little porthole room, we live OVER THE ANCHOR! I'm sure the mooring lines are down there making a racket, too. I should have made that connection when booking the room, but it completely escaped me. I’m guessing those poor souls on Decks 4 and 5 had an even louder display of the prowess of the anchor than we did. I thought, “How long can it take to drop an anchor anyway?” Apparently, a long time! It went on all morning it seemed. There are also ropes and other things that have to happen and we had a front row seat for all of the racket. I willed myself to doze off for a little while longer but finally gave up and headed for the shower. We were going snorkeling at noon, but I wanted to explore the new port area before meeting our excursion. No time like the present! Up to Lido for breakfast. Like I said earlier, on the whole, the food on this ship has been some of the best yet. I’m impressed! By the time we finished breakfast and had gone back to our room to brush our teeth, the ship had been cleared and we were free to go ashore. The banging had stopped. All was well. It was about 8:30am. We went down to Deck 3 to the gangway and off the ship. We were docked between Carnival Liberty and Allure of the Seas. Elation looked tiny between them! I sent the picture to our cruise group and our friend Emory said it looked like a lifeboat beside Allure. He’s right! Off the ship and headed into Nassau Looking over into the new port area Liberty was also in port Little baby Elation beside huge Allure of the Seas Emory said she looks like a lifeboat next to Allure! I've been to Nassau multiple times, but this was our first visit since the new port was finished. The new port area is so nice! As you reach the end of the dock you can see the video wall. There is a very cool video of a shark that looks like it’s breaking out of the aquarium. It’s great! There were a couple of buildings right at the entrance that were not entirely finished on the interior. I opened the door to see what there was inside and basically NOTHING was inside, only equipment. I’ll be interested to see what else is happening in that building later. There’s also a Junkanoo Museum. It looks interesting but I thought the $11 per person to go inside was a little steep. We looked through the window but didn’t pay to do the tour. Here's the shark sequence. It makes a lot more sense when you see it moving... You see the shark...the shark sees you..... He bites the glass, and it starts to shatter... He's loose! Fortunately, there's a large amount of concrete between you and him so I like your chances The next section was lines of cute little vendor stalls. Most of these were open air but some were enclosed. We stopped in Greycliffe Chocolatiers. We had visited Graycliffe on West Hill St a couple of years ago and I keep meaning to do the chocolate making tour. Another activity for another day, I guess. Most of the flavors were very weird and didn’t appeal to me at all. Dill pickle chocolate? No thank you! I’ll just admire how pretty they are and move along! Vendor stalls and stores Here's a place for Aaron to get his next conch fritters (he was on a mission to find some in the Sunrise Story.) They were setting up for some event, but I don't know what I love collecting local art. We stopped in one stall with paintings done by a local artist. There were a lot of choices, but I finally settled on a small picture for $16.50. Well worth it! We wandered in and out of several shops and window shopped at all of them. There were stalls with typical touristy items and t-shirts and boutique stores with expensive resort type clothing. We found a magnet we liked and bought that. That was pretty much the extent of our purchases. Near the center of the port area is a gelato shop. There were probably about 30 flavors and although it was only around 10:00 am, I had to try the gelato. We got two small cups. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth it! Ron got strawberry shortcake and I had Nutella. Delicious! Gelato shop The doors were open and there were a few places to sit Strawberry shortcake and Nutella! We wandered a bit more and found the Love Swing was empty. It's pretty much just a photo op, albeit a fun one. Another couple wandered by about that time, and we traded photography duties. (Probably a little closer would have made for a better picture. Oh well!) We weren’t quite ready to go back to the ship, so we wandered over to the Parliament building. We’ve been there several times, but I enjoy visiting that part of town. I think it’s so interesting that the building colors have specific meanings. If I recall from a previous tour pink is for government buildings and yellow is for medical buildings. Maybe green for education? I don’t remember any of the others. Since it was still pretty early, and we’d seen everything we wanted to see AND our excursion wasn’t leaving until noon AND it wouldn’t be back until 3pm AND we’d be hungry by that time we opted for a quick snack back on board. Neither of us was really hungry and it was only 11:00 Ron suggested that we half a ham and cheese sandwich from the deli. That seemed like a good idea to me. He got our sandwich and, although neither of us finished what we had, we had at least eaten something and that should hold us over until dinner. Time for me to get to work but I'll be back later to post more.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your reading along and kind words. I guess it really could be the implant? I didn’t really think it was large enough to register on the metal detector.

I just realized I forgot the FunTimes for the Sea Day! Maybe someday I will get it figured out.....

After playing trivia for a while we went to the Fun Aboard/Fun Ashore show. I had gone once before and enjoyed it. This was OK. I had forgotten how much time it took! I don’t know if I’ll go on future sailings, but I didn’t have any other plans, so it was as good a way as any to pass the time. Gabe, our cruise director. I think I understood him to say that Elation was his first cruise director job. He was previously a member of the Fun Squad on Mardi Gras. As we were leaving the show, I found a little green dragon duck. My first duck find of the cruise. I also hid a duck each day. These are the ducks that I brought to hide. We opted to go back to our room, drop off our winnings and get our Kindles. When we got to the room, Gede, the Invisible Man, had already been there. He left our first towel animal. A bear maybe? Not really sure what it is to be honest! You be the judge! We took our Kindles and headed up to find a deck chair. It was very windy. I would later learn that the wind was steadily blowing at 47 miles per hour. We found a partially sheltered area and settled in. It was kind of cold and I was glad I had brought my jacket. Even though it was cold there were, of course, a number of children in the pool. When we went by, they were all splashing around having a great time. When we came by later, they were all sitting out on the edge of the pool, wet and shivering, and looking despondent as the pool was being drained. I heard later that one of them had thrown up. The pool was completely drained and cleaned. It would be several hours before they were able to swim again. After reading for a while and being buffeted by the wind, it was a little after 12:00 so we decided to go to Blue Iguana for some tacos. We each got a chicken and a pork taco. They had lemon meringue cake, which is one of my favorites, and Ron opted for the strawberry shortcake. Very satisfactory lunch! It was time for a nap! Isn’t that afternoon nap on the ship an awesome thing?!?! No one is calling me, no emails coming in, no reports that need to be finished, no house pictures to take….just a comfy bed and getting rocked to sleep with absolutely no time frame or alarm. It was glorious. After waking up we decided to try to whole “read the Kindle on deck” thing again. It was still windy but not quite as bad as before. We passed a relaxing couple of hours. This was elegant night. We got ready and went to dinner right at six. Gusti and Sadia were very quick again. We walked in, sat down and Sadia was immediately there with water and bread. This menu is probably my favorite of the week. I really enjoy the spinach salad and prime rib. Ron had some kind of spring roll and also the prime rib. We both had butter pecan ice cream for dessert. It was all exceptionally good, and we were again finished with dinner in about an hour. We managed to sneak out before “showtime”. We didn't buy any photos on this sailing because we already have quite a few. We did clean up a little. LOL We enjoy watching Parodeejay vlogs. We tend to watch pretty much every video series of all their sailings. They always do a segment called "sock of the day" when Jay wears unusual socks. Liz always buys Ron funny or interesting socks for Father's Day and other holidays. It's kind of their "thing". This is his favorite pair so here's his "sock of the day" photo. After dinner we headed to the Mikado theatre to watch Heart of Soul. I’m not sure if we’d seen this one or not. I feel like we had but I’m not sure. It was a good show, pretty standard Playlist fare. No complaints from me. After that we went to see the second comedian, Larry Omaha. We didn’t have to stand in line for quite as long and sat more toward the back of the room. He was marginally better than the first guy but not much. We left a little early. I was glad I went but didn’t go back for the rest of the cruise. After we left Limelight, we went to Duke’s piano bar. The entertainer was Chris Wood. This guy was GOOD! I mean REALLY good. In most cases the piano bar entertainers are either really good pianists or really good vocalists. Chris was BOTH an excellent pianist and a fantastic vocalist. We returned to the piano bar a couple of night during the cruise. He did an all-request sing along type show which is my favorite kind. Duke's Piano Bar It had sort of a NY theme going, including a huge Statue of Liberty head. I really want to sail from New York at some point to sail by the Statue of Liberty. After we finished up at the piano bar we wandered up on deck for a bit. You could see three different cruise ships off in the distance. The pool was filled again. The wind had calmed down. The temperature was slightly warmer, and all was well with the world. We headed to bed. Tomorrow would be our first port day in Nassau. This is a really terrible picture but the two oblong lights in the distance are two of the cruise ships. Sorry about the photo quality!

Sea Day – Tuesday April 30th We planned to sleep in on our first sea day and I made it to 8:30. Ron was already up, of course, because he’s a VERY early riser. To be honest, 8:30 is about as late as I can usually do. So, by our definition at least, we slept in. There were a couple of things we wanted to do but the first was the Sea Day Brunch. Neither of us are big breakfast eaters. Although this Sea Day Brunch menu has been around for a while, we had never tried it. We decided to change that this morning. We were up and ready for breakfast. We checked in on the app and our table was ready almost immediately. We headed to the dining room and were given a table for two. Nice! We both ordered the 12 Hour French Toast. I also ordered a side of extra crispy bacon. Bacon is seldom crispy enough for me. I want it CRISPY…most people would say burned. I want it to stand up on its own and never bend. Floppy bacon just won’t work for me! They have to make it the way most people like it on Lido, which is at least somewhat bendable, so I was hoping for some REALLY crispy bacon today. Alas, that would not be the case. It was crispy by most standards, I guess. It was still good and I ate it but I would have been perfectly happy if it were even crispier. Then came the French toast. I knew from seeing photos on Cruise Critic that the 12 hour French toast was thick but I didn’t realize it was something like half a loaf of bread. It was HUGE! Monstrous! It could have had its own zip code it was so big. I decided to keep an open mind and try it. It was OK….not great, but OK. I guess Sea Day Brunch is wasted on me. For the rest of the cruise we went back to Lido for breakfast where I could get my croissant, maybe some cheese, a sausage link….whatever. Breakfast isn’t my favorite meal by far. I’ll get by with the quicker, easier option on Lido! After breakfast was finished it was time for our first trivia game of the cruise. We have a whole fleet of solid gold plastic ships on a stick and I was hoping for one on this cruise as well. It’s a silly little thing but they make me smile and always spark a fun conversation when people visit our house and see them all. Ron is usually the one who wins the trivia rounds. I’ve managed it a couple of times but he’s generally the “gunner”. We have our Diet Pepsi and we're ready for serious business. It begins... The first trivia game was General Knowledge. It was pretty much a mix up bunch of random facts. Ron tied for first and won in a tiebreaker question. You go, Dear! Good job!! The collection is secure for another cruise! We stuck around and played Fact or Fiction trivia next. We didn’t win any other trivia games on this sailing, but we played several and were very happy to have our ship on a stick.